Rohan Abeygunawardena

There are books written on history, economics, and wars. But the book written and published by Dr. Thomas Jeyendran (BA (Hons), MBA, Cert. Ed, DBA, FCMI, FIC) ‘The EVENTS THAT MADE HISTORY IN CEYLON AND BEYOND’ includes the story of the development of International Trade over the years,

The Battles for Trincomalee and HMS Trincomalee.

I consider this a must-read Historical Book on History.

I was inspired to write this article after reading his book which he presented to a few of his classmates including me. He also presented copies to His Excellency Ranil Wickremesinghe and the library of his alma mater Royal College, Colombo.

The article is also a review of his book from which much information is reproduced. I have also emphasized HMS Trincomalee as it is a Royal Navy Leda-class sailing frigate built shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars named after an important city in Sri Lanka.

• Ancient Trade Routes

There had been hundreds of trade routes around Africa, Asia, and Europe. But the most significant trade routes were The Silk Road, The Incense Trade Routes, The Salt Trade Routes, the Saharan Trade Routes, The Amber Road, The Tin Trade Routes, The Tea-Horse Trade Routes, and The Spice Trade Routes. The author has discussed in detail the historical perspectives of each of these routes.

The Silk Road stretched to 4000 travel miles (approx. 6438km) and was deemed a difficult task for a single group of travellers to make the entire journey. As a result, so many trading points were evolved as trans-shipment hubs. These middlemen could also handle local customs, and taxes and provide security against highway robbers.

However, the Spice Trade Routes are significant in developing International Trade which was largely maritime-based. The maritime Trade Routes enabled the merchants to link east and west without entering various tribal and other forms of chiefdoms and kingdoms. As they can move their commodities avoiding taxes levied by the Chieftains and Kings. The sea routes were a cheaper option. 

Historically Arab traders have been between the producers and the consumers. Their maritime capabilities and understanding of the seasonal variations, such as the Southerly winds and monsoons enabled them to move the goods safely. However, threats began to appear to undermine the Arab traders from European merchants. It was the beginning of the power politics played by the European Countries and the consequential military wars. Countries such as Ceylon and India had to endure many of these battles.

• Colonial Era” of Ceylon

The author has identified the period between 1594 and 1948 as the Colonial Era” of Ceylon. During this period, three European powers colonised the Island. Initially, it was the Portuguese who came as visitors in 1505 and colonised the Maritime area in 1594. The Dutch expelled the Portuguese in 1658 and ruled the maritime area up to 1796 when on an agreement its possession in Ceylon and other countries were handed over to the British. Ceylon was made a Crown Colony of British in 1802.

In the year 1815, the British managed to capture the Kandyan kingdom (located in the central and eastern portion of the Island) and ruled the entire country till 1948 when independence was granted.

• Trincomalee

Trincomalee was one of the world’s finest natural harbours located on Sri Lanka’s Northeastern coast. It was in early times a major settlement of Indo-Aryan immigrants. The Temple of a Thousand Columns (also called Koneswaram Temple), located at the extremity of the peninsula, came into use as a Hindu temple sometime in the 7th century or earlier (Encyclopaedia Britannica.)

The name is derived from the old Tamil word “Thiru-kona-malai” meaning “Lord of the Sacred Hill.” Thiru is a generally used epithet denoting a “sacred” (probably referring to Koneswaram temple site.) The word Ko, or Kone means in Old Tamil, a Lord or a king temple site, and Malai means mountain or hill. In Sinhala   Trikuṇāmaḷaya, also known as Gokanna and Gokarna.

Dr. Thomas Jeyendran (left) presenting the book to Rohan Abeygunawardena

The author’s research indicates that Trincomalee was the sea farers’ marketplace for millennia. The spice and silk from East Asia, and metal and other goods from West Asia were the primary commodities exchanged in this market. The Chinese and Arabs were active in this trading centre in the Middle Ages and there were many claims that Chinese Warlords demanded protection money from Kings in Ceylon. The archaeological findings of pieces of porcelain and metal objects near the China Bay Sea confirm the status of Trincomalee.

[As you are aware China has embarked currently on a project called Belt and Road Initiative (also known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR)) aiming to strengthen Beijing’s economic leadership through a vast program of infrastructure building throughout China’s neighbouring regions. – History repeats]

The first Europeans to occupy the Trincomalee town and Port were the Portuguese in the 17th century (1624); they razed the temple and used the debris to construct a fort. It was a triangular fort equipped with guns captured from a Danish fleet ship. They named it Fort of Triquillimale.

This fort was captured by a Dutch fleet under Antonie Caan in 1639 and in 1665 a new fort was built by the Dutch to defend against the advancements of the British and the French. However in the late 18thcentaury British took over the fort after the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, but allowed the Dutch to man it. British named it Fort Fredrick.”

During the time of King Louis XVI who was competent in Latin and English saw himself and France as significant players in the international arena. For him, Trincomalee was seen as a central hub for French maritime activities and trade in the Indian Ocean.

The Anglo-French war started in 1778 and continued until 1783 with continuous skirmishes off the coast of Trincomalee.

On August 30th, 1782 French fleet commanded by Admiral Bailli de Suffren captured Trincomalee Fort manned by the Dutch and annexed it to France.

Later it was captured by the British Admiral Sir Edward Hughes but allowed the Dutch to occupy it.

As a result of the Treaty of Paris, the Dutch agreed to hand over Ceylon to the British on 26th August 1795.

• HMS Trincomalee

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars between 1800 and 1815, Great Britain emerged as a growing Empire and the world’s dominant superpower. It was mainly due to its powerful Royal Navy (British Navy).

Royal Navy then decided to modernise its fleet with speedier and more maneuverable ships. The design of the 47 new vessels based on HMS Leda, Royal Navy constructed at Chatham Dockyard and launched on 18th November 1800. Leda’s design was based on the French frigate Hébé, which the British captured in 1782.

There was an oak shortage in Britain due to shipbuilding drives for the Napoleonic Wars. Despite the challenges, the Royal Navy continued to build ships strategically. They used other types of wood, such as elm, fir, spruce, and teak (mainly from India) for decking, yardarms, and masts.

A typical example was building HMS Trincomalee.

Royal Navy placed an order with Bombay (Mumbai) Dockyard for a new warship.  Jamsetjee Boanjee Wadiya of Wadiya Group of Shipbuilders constructed a 46 gun Frigate using Malabar teak under this order. The cost of construction was 23,000 pounds back then.

It was named ‘HMS Trincomalee’ after the 1782 Battle of Trincomalee off the Ceylon port of that name. The shipbuilder Wadiya ceremonially hammered an engraved silver nail into the ship’s keel according to Parsi Zoroastrian tradition before the launch on October 12th 1817.

On its maiden voyage under Commander Philip Henry Bridges ship arrived at Saint Helena on 24th January 1819. This island was the place of exile the British government selected for Napoleon Bonaparte, after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. HMS Trincomalee stayed for 6 days and left with an additional passenger, Mr John Stokoe, a surgeon who had attended Napoleon at Longwood House. Longwood was specially constructed for the special refugee, Napoleon.  

HMS Trincomalee received its first commission in 1847 and left Portsmouth on September 21st with a crew of 240 and Richard Laird Warren as the captain. The ship provided protective cover in the North American and West Indies region until August 9th, 1850. Some of the duties she undertook were to quell riots in Haiti and stop a threatened invasion of Cuba. She also served on an anti-slavery patrol. It returned to Devenport, (formally Plymouth Dock) in Great Britain when its first commission ended.

On April 30th, 1819 the ship arrived at Portsmouth Dockyard in Hampshire, She received its second commission under the command of Captain Wallace Houstoun in 1852. In August she was deployed to the Royal Navy’s Pacific Squadron based in Vancouver and she patrolled the west coast of North America and the Pacific Ocean. This six-footer disciplinarian, Houstoun, was much respected by his crew. He dressed his men in stylish red shirts and caps. At this time no formal uniforms were available for ratings, so more affluent captains often clothed their crew from their pocket.

When the Crimean War was declared by Imperial Russia against an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the Great Britten, and Sardinia-Piedmont on 28th March 1854, HMS Trincomalee joined an Anglo-French Squadron of 11 ships assigned to destroy Russian frigates in the North Pacific.

In 1856 when the war ended, she was moved to Esquimalt (Vancouver Island). Her duties included mainly to make courtesy visits to Pacific Colonies and to undertake hydrographic surveys.

She returned to England in 1857, she was put back ‘in ordinary’ after arriving at Chatham on 4th   September. Then in 1862 she was moved to West Hartlepool and was made a drill ship to train teenage Naval Volunteers.

On completion of its training duties, she was placed in reserve again in 1895.  Geoffry Wheatly Cobb, an entrepreneur bought it two years later when the Royal Navy decided to sell it for scrap. He renamed it Foudroyant in honour of HMS Foudroyant, his earlier ship that had been wrecked in 1897.

HMS Trincomalee, renamed HMS Foudroyant, was used in conjunction with HMS Implacable as an accommodation ship, a training ship, and a holiday ship based in Falmouth. 

After the death of Mr. Cobb in early 1931, his widow handed the ship over to the Implacable Committee of the Society for Nautical Research (ICSNR) where she was moored in Portsmouth as extra accommodation for the youth.

From 1947 to 1986 she remained an adventure training base for Sea Cadets, Sea rangers, and Sea Scouts under the Foudroyant Trust. She was then moved to shipyards of the Hartlepool.

Soon after HMS Warrior, the Victorian battleship completed restoration work at Hartlepool the elderly frigate HMS Foudroyant floated into Hartlepool on July 30, 1987 to begin its restoration.

Hartlepool has been at the centre of maritime shipbuilding in the North East of England for centuries and now it is the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Most of the historical sailing ships used during Napoleonic wars and before were restored at Hartlepool.

Her restoration commenced on 1st January 1990. In April 1992, the name of the Foudroyant Trust was changed to HMS Trincomalee Trust and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh became the Trust’s patron.

The 1854 figurehead has been in storage for decades (from BBC)

The restoration work continued till 2001. The restoration personnel realised the unique figurehead, the four-foot-tall turbaned man was made by the well-known carver Hellyer and Sons in 1845. It was a nobleman from the Chettiyars business community then believed to be living in Trincomalee region in ancient Ceylon.

HMS Foudroyant was restored and renamed back to HMS Trincomalee in 1992.

This ship which can boast two centuries of history has sailed more than 100,000 miles worldwide since 1817. She was the last ship to be built in India for the Royal Navy. While she is the oldest Royal Navy warship afloat, the oldest warship afloat in the world is the USS Constitution. She is 20 years older than HMS Trincomalee.

She is now a museum ship and the centrepiece of the National Museum of the Royal Navy based in Hartlepool and a major tourist attraction.

• An opportunity for the Sri Lanka Tourism 

HMS Trincomalee celebrated its bicentenary in 2017 (BBC)

There is an opportunity for the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) to promote ‘Visit Sri Lanka’ among those visiting HMS Trincomalee. SLTDA and the High Commission of Sri Lanka in the UK should establish some mechanism to educate visitors on the history of Trincomalee and the wars that took place in the vicinity.

Do not forget the famous British admiral, Horatio Nelson, called Trincomalee ‘the finest harbour in the world.’

Rohan Abeygunawardena ACMA, CGMA